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A DISCOURSE 



ON OUR 



iNATIONAL AFFAIRS 

DELIVERED ON FAST DAY, 

MAY 9th, 1861, 

By Hev. V^^ESLEY SMITH, 

Pastor of the Fourth Street M. E. Church. 
WHEELING, VA. 



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Publisliecl by Ileq[iiest. 



WM. EWING, PRINTER AND BLANK BOOK MANUFACTURER, 
CORNER MARKET AND MONROE STREETS. 

18G1. 



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^ 






A DISCOURSE 



ON OUR 



NATIONAL AFFAIKS, 

DELIVERED ON FAST DAY, 

MAY 9th, 1861, 

By Kev. A^^ESLEY SMITH, 

Pastor of the Fourth Street M. E. Church, 
WHEELING, VA. 



P\Tblisli.ed by Request. 



-<♦»*> 



WM. EWING, PRINTER AND BLANK BOOK MANUFACTrRTR, 
CORNER MARKET AND MONROE STREETS. 

180J. 



IN EXCHANGl 
Bos. Athen 






v/\^' 






DIVINE PROVIDENCE ACKNOWLEDGED. 



And one told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspira- 
tors with Absalom. And David said, O Lord, I pray thee turn the 
counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. II Samuel, xv: 31. 

And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, the counsel ofHushai 
the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For the Lord 
has appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel to the in- 
tent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom. II Samuel, 
xvii: 14. 

I have not read these passages of Holy Writ with a view 
of entering into a lengthy discussion of tiie occasion 
which gave rise to their utterance, but because they indi- 
cate the course we should pursue in the present aspect of 
our national affairs, which are strikingly analagous to the 
condition of the Jewish nation at the time referred to in 
the text. Now, as tlien, there is an armed rebellion 
actively engaged to overthrow our government and des- 
troy our national existence. 

We are assembled here in the House of God in obe- 
dience to the civil authorities of our city to humble our- 
selves before the Divine Majesty, and to implore Divine 
assistance to enable us to ascertain what is our duty as 
citizens, in view of the storm that appears ready to burst 
upon us, and in view of the diver.sity of sentiment enter- 
tained in regard to the impending crisis. This I suppose 
to be the object of the City Council and the Mayor in 
requesting this to be observed as a day of humiliation, 
fasting and prayer, and that the pastors and people 
should assemble together in their several places of wor- 
ship. 

I suppose it will be admitted by all, that our Govern- 
ment is either right or wrong in its present attitude 
towards those who have defied its poAver and are in open 
armed rebellion against it. If the General Government 
is in the right, then every man and every combination of 
men. whether the number be five hundred or five millions, 



who resist its authority are rebels and traitors. The 
Government and its enemies cannot both be right. And 
if the City Council and tlie Mayor expected me to come 
here and pray to God to split the difference between them 
and take part with neither, they have made a great mis- 
take, I shall do no such thing. I shall prove from the 
fathers of the republic, and the word of God, that our 
Government is right, and then I shall ask God to defend 
the right, if every man and woman in Wheeling, and in 
the State of Virginia were opposed to me. And let it 
be distinctly understood, that this momentous question, 
involving as it does the freedom or enslavement of your- 
selves and your posterity through all coming time, is not 
to be settled by an appeal to passion or local preju- 
dice, nor by your opinions or mine, but by an appeal to 
the facts of history, and the Word of God. In the fur- 
ther investigation of the subject before us I shall notice, 

I. The great doctrine enunciated in the text, namely the 
overruling providence of God in the affairs of men. 

II. The lesson of instruction we may derive from this 
subject in view of our present national difficulties. 

I. The subject teaches the doctrine of God's over- 
ruling providence. But it teaches, also, most emphati- 
cally that he works by means, and that he can and does 
use both good and bad men in the accomplishment of his 
gracious purposes towards those who trust in him. He 
causes the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder 
of wrath he restrains. 

Hence it is the duty of the Christian and the patriot 
to use all lawful means in defence of his rights as though 
everything depended on his own efforts, and then to trust 
in God for success in defeating the schemes of his ene- 
mies, as though he had done nothing at all. There is a 
great deal of Bible philosophy in the sentiment attribu- 
ted to that stern old puritan, Oliver Cromwell, in charg- 
ing his soldiers to trust in God and keep their powder 
dry. The bible is full of just such teaching. Tliis doc- 
trine was well understood by David. Hence we find him 
when driven from his throne by the unnatural rebellion 
of an ungodly son relying for success on both Divine 
and human agency, and that God in whom he trusted, 



cruslicd out tlic rebellion and restored lilni again to his 
throne and government. 

1. David made use of prayer to God, that he Avould 
turn t!ie eounsel of that crafty, poAverful and unscrupu- 
lous political intriguer, Ahithophel, into foolishness. It 
seems that this man was a kind of prime minister or 
secretary of state in the cabinet of the Jewish sovereigns, 
and that his influence over the other ministers and even 
over the mdnarch himself, was almost unbounded. In 
the '2'Sd verse of the 16th chapter of this book Ave have 
these words; — "And the counsel of Ahithophel which he 
counselled in those days, was as if a man had enquired at 
the oracle of God: so Avas all the counsel of Ahithophel 
both with David and with Absalom." It is no Avonder, 
then, that David dreaded his influence and guarded 
against it by appealing to God to defeat it. Perhaps no 
man, either ancient or modern, had a larger experience 
in regard to the efficacy of prayer than Israel's pious 
shepherd king. Had not God interposed in his behalf 
in numerous instances, in ansAver to prayer, his enemies 
had swallowed liim up. 

2. David made use of the talents and influence of a 
faitiifiil and devoted friend, one Avho seems to have been 
second only in influence to Ahithophel among his cour- 
tiers. This maa Avhose name was Hushai appears to 
have 1)cen ardently attached to his laAvful king and deter- 
mined to share his foitunes in the day of his adversity. 
He came to meet David outside of the city of Jerusalem 
as lie and his faithfal adherents Avere flying for their liveSj 
Avith his coat rent and earth upon his head, as an evidence 
of the deep distress he felt in consequence of the terrible 
calamity Avhicli had fallen on the fugitive monarch. And 
God Avas pleased to hear the prayer of David, and through 
the instrumentality of Hushai Avhomhe persuaded to return 
to the city; the good counsel of Ahithophel, which if it had 
becnfolloAved would probably have resulted in the destruc- 
tion of David and jiart of his hosts, Avas entirely defeated. 
When these tAvo men hadboth given counsel t<)Absalom,Ave 
are told that, "Absalom and all the men of Israel said the 
counsel of Husliai the Archite is better tlian the counsel 
01 Ahithophel. " For the Lord had apj)()inted to defeat 



the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the 
Lord might bring evil upon Absalom." When wicked 
men have forfeited their lives to divine justice, God gives 
them over, and permits them to be blinded by the father 
of lies, until they rush headlong on their own destruc- 
tion. This was the case with Absalom at the time here 
spoken of. While he was only thinking of reaching a 
throne by wading through the blood of his father and 
his king, he was rushing madly to a traitor's doom. 

3. When David found that nothing else Avould do he 
appealed to the arbitrament of the sword and the God 
of battles. David no doubt regarded this as a dire calam- 
ity, and labored to avoid it. He prayed that the counsel 
of his enemy might be defeated, and thus far his prayer 
was heard, but the counsels of the Almiglity in regard 
to the author of this uriTiatural rebellion were not yet 
accomplished. Absalom had forfeited his life and di- 
vine justice could not be satisfied until that life was ta- 
ken. With all his personal accomplishments he appears 
to have been a vain, ambitious, revengeful, blood-thirsty 
young man. Apart from all his other crimes, he had 
forfeited his life by the rebellion in which he was 
then engaged. God's law takes cognizance of the inten- 
tions and purposes of the heart. There are crimes of 
the heart where the overt act is never committed. Ab- 
salom had conceived the most diabolical crime that it was 
possible for a human being to commit, the destruction of 
the life of his father and his sovereign, and that by a pre- 
meditated act. God had a controversy with David also, 
on account of the double crime of murder and adultery 
in the case of one of his most valient officers, and the 
seduction of his wife, thereby "giving great occasion to 
the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme." The Lord sent 
Nathan the prophet to bring this great sin to his remem- 
brance in that inimitable parable recorded in II Samuel, 
xii chap. There the baseness of David's conduct is 
brought to light "by the rich man who had exceeding 
many flocks and herds ; and the poor man who had noth- 
ing, save one little ewe lamb which he had bought and 
nourished up; and it grew up together with him, and 
with liis children; it did eat of his own meat, and drink 



of his own cup, and laj in his bosom, and was unto him 
as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the 
rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of 
his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man; but took 
the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was 
come to him." And David's anger was greatly, kindled 
against the man; and he said to Nathan, as the Lord 
liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely 
die! And Nathan said unto David, "thou art the man," 
Nathan then tells him what God had done for him in 
delivering him from the hand of Saul, and giving him 
his master's house, and the house of Israel and Judah, 
and if this had not been enough he would have given him 
more. That after all this he had despised the command- 
ment of the Lord to do evil in his sight, having killed 
Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the children of Am- 
mon, and taken his wife to himself; "Now, therefore," 
said the prophet, "the sword shall never depart from 
thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast 
taken the wife of Uriah the Ilittite to be thy wife." 
Thus saith the Lord, " Behold, I will raise up evil against 
thee out of thine own house, for thou didst it secretly; 
but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the 
sun." 

Here the Almighty clearly asserts the great doctrine 
of an over ruling Providence. That it is by him kings 
rule and princes decree judgment. And, furthermore, 
that as nations and governments, as such, will have no 
existence in the world to come, their crimes must be 
visited with national judgments in this world, that both 
the rulers and the ruled may learn to fear God and work 
righteousness. The standard of morality must have been 
exceedmgly low in the Jewish Church at that thne, when 
this henious crime was permitted to go unrebuked until 
God sent a special message by Nathan. Or it may have 
been that the public teachers of religion were afraid of 
their popularity, or afraid they would be accused of 
preaching politics should they rebuke the sin of the chief 
magistrate. There is no doubt there were time-servers 
in the ministry then as well as at the present time. Theso 
faithless watchmen are thus described by the prophet 



Isaiah LVi: 10, 11, " They are dumb dogs they cannot 
bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, 
they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and 
they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look 
to their own way, every one for his gain from his quar- 
ter." In this way the sin of the ruler became the sin 
of the nation, and subjected them to the judgment which 
had now fallen upon them in the rebellion of Absalom 
and the civil war which grew out of it. 

4. We pass to notice the successful issue of the con- 
test upon which David and his army had entered. Al- 
though the rebel forces under his ungodly son greatly 
outnumbered those that remained faithful to their own 
heaven appointed government, yet they met with a signal 
defeat. The lion hearted Joalj(who was the Gen. Scott 
of that army) charged at the head of his victorious le- 
gions, bearing down all before them, and scattering the 
rebel hosts like the chaff of the summer threshing floor 
is scattered by the winds of heaven. 

It appears by the account we have in the xv chapter 
of II Samuel, that the beautiful Absalom had all the blan- 
dishments of an Aaron Burr and as deep a depravity of 
heart. Like the traitors in our own country who are in 
arms to day to destroy the constitutional government of 
the nation founded, by your patriot sires and owned 
and blessed of God. Absalom stole the hearts of the men 
of Israel by declaiming against the government of his 
father and king, the best government and administered 
in the best manner of any on the face of the earth at that 
time. It was in regard to the justice and equity with 
wdiich David administered the government, that God 
said he was a man after his own heart. The charge made 
by Absalom against the government of the king of Israel 
and those made by the leaders in the present rebellion 
rest upon the same foundation. They are sheer fabrica- 
tions, having no foundation in fact. But we are taught 
here a most important lesson of instruction; God grant 
we may profit by it. If men would study this priceless 
treasure, the Word of God and obey its precepts, there 
would be neither treason nor rebellion to the end of 
time. Let us listen to its words of warning. 



"And Absalom rose early and stood beside the way of 
the gate; and it was so, that when any man that had a 
controversy came to the king for judgment, that Absa- 
lom called unto him and said, of what city art thou. And 
he said, thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel. 
And Absalom said unto him, see thy matters are good 
and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to 
hear thee. And Absalom said moreover. Oh that I were 
made a Judge in the land, that every man which hath a 
suit or cause might come unto me and I would do him 
justice. And it was so when any man came nigh to him 
to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took 
him and kissed him. And in this manner did Absalom 
to all Israel that came to the king for judgment: so Ab- 
salom stole the hearts of the men of Israel." 

It seems from the account here given, that it is no new 
thing for men to be the dupes of dishonest and design- 
ing men, who by good words and fair speeches make 
merchandise of them. Absalom persuaded the people 
that the government of David was not administered in 
accordance with the principles of justice and that if he 
was at the head of affairs, he would give them their rights, 
and thus the unfortunate dupes were led into open re- 
bellion against the constitutional government of their 
country, and they got their rights; rights they had nof 
bargained for — the right to perish on the battle field as 
rebels and traitors, without pity from God or man. Di- 
vine providence fought for David on that eventful day aa 
well as Joab." For the battle was there scattered over 
the face of all the country; and the wood devoured more 
people that day than the sword devoured. And the peo- 
ple of Israel were slain before the servants of David, and 
there was a great slaughter that day of tiventy thousand 
men." Absalom, the leader in this rebellion, met his 
doom from the hand of Joab while suspended by the head 
from the boughs of an oak, thus indicating the purpose 
of God, that treason should be punished with death by 
hanging. 

Ahithophel the chief counsellor in the rebellion had 
hung himself, when he found his counsel was not followed 
and Absalom was hung by divine providence, and twenty 



10 

thousand of those who had entered into the conspiracy 
were left to be devoured by the wild beasts in the wood 
of Ephraim, So perislied that band of traitors, and so 
perish all traitors in like circumstances until treason 
shall cease to curse the world, and so they will perish so 
long as God governs the universe. The leaders of the 
rebellion having got their deserts, Joab blew the trumpet 
and held back the people from pursuing their brethern. 
David was borne back to his capital in triumph, where he 
reigned for many years; died in a good old age, and went 
home to that peaceful country where wars and discords 
are unknown. 

II. We come to notice tlio lesson of instruction we 
may derive from this subject in view of our present na- 
tional difficulties. 

Before proceeding to this duty let me ask a few ques- 
tions that we may ascertain whether we have anything 
worth contending for? Let us not deceive ourselves. 
We are on the eve of a most sanguinary and relentless 
civil war, and shall be compelled to take sides either for 
the government or against it. The time has come when 
you must choose between constitutional liberty on the 
one hand, and rebellion, treason and anarchy on the 
other, and this state of things has been precipitated by 
the action of your own convention recently assembled at 
Kichmond. You may shut your eyes and stop your ears, 
and cry peace; but I tell you there is no peace. The 
clangor of arms, and the tramp of armed legions is all 
around you and may shortly be at your doors. You will 
be called upon to make great pecuniary sacrifices, and it 
may be the sacrifice of life. War is an evil; civil war 
a tremendous evil, but there is an evil a thousand fold 
greater than war, and that is the iron heel of despotism; 
a cruel and relentless despotism such as was inaugurated 
by the Ilichmond star chamber in secret conclave, that 
would trample all constitutional law under its feet 
and supercede the ballot box by the cartridge box. A 
despotism that would plunder our property by unjust 
taxes, peril our lives by armed ruffians, and rob us of that 
without which life would be a curse, our liberty. Let 
us now and here count the cost and determine whether 



11 

our country and its institutions are worth the sacrifioe 
we may be called to make. 

Have we a country, fellow citizens? Have we a coun- 
try known at home and abroad as the United States of 
America, a country that in eighty-five years has risen 
from thirteen feeble and dependent colonies to thirty- 
four states, constituting one of the mightiest nations on 
the globe. A country whose constitution has been the 
admiration of the whole civilized world, whose progress 
under free institutions has paralysed tyrants in every land 
and given hope to their downtrodden subjects, whose 
glorious flag has been borne in triumph over land and 
ocean, sheilding the citizen wherever it fluttered in the 
breeze of heaven, without enquiring Mdiether he-Avas of 
native or foreign birth, or whether he lived in South 
Carolina or Massachusetts. Have we any evidence that 
the God of providence had any hand in founding and 
watching over this young giant empire? Has he any 
designs to be accomplished through its instrumentality, 
in the civil and moral regeneration of the world? And 
did the noble patriots who erected this glorious temple 
of liberty, cementing it with their blood and consecrating 
it with their prayers, I say did they design that in less 
than a century it should be torn to peices by the vandal 
hands of those Avho had received and enjoyed the largest 
share of its benefits. Or did they dig deep and lay its 
broad foundations on the rock of immutable and eternal 
truth and justice, so that although the rain and the floods 
and the winds of treason and perjury and armed rebellion 
might beat upon it, it should not fall, being founded on a 
rock? Did these men intend that this country should 
remain one united nation under one constitution and one 
government down to the end of time? These are ques- 
tions of the last importance to us and our children and 
to unborn millions who are to come after us. If the 
union of the states is merely a partnership from which 
any one may withdraw at pleasure, then we never were 
a nation and never had a government, and if this doctrine 
of peaceable or forcible secession be admitted, we never 
can have a republican government. A government that 
should make provision in its fundamental law for its own 



12 

destruction would be a monument of the ignorance or 
mental imbecility of its authors and would excite the 
scorn and ridicule of the whole world. 

I shall now prove to you by the most unexceptionable 
and conclusive evidence that the framers of the present 
constitution and government of these United States, did 
intend that the union of these States, upon the adoption 
of the constitution by the people, should be perpetual, 
and that they did believe that a division of the same for 
any cause would be their destruction. As the rebel lead- 
ers claim that the right of secession is a constitutional 
right, it is necessary that I should prove that this absurd 
claim has no foundation in fact, but originated in the dis- 
ordered brains of its authors. 

There cannot be too much importance attached to this 
question as it is one involving our very existence as a 
nation. It is one involving not only our civil but our 
religious liberty. If the Richmond and Montgomery 
traitors have a right to dictate to us at the point of the 
bayonet what government we shall live under, they have 
have precisely the same right to dictate what church we 
shall belong to, and they claim this right at the present 
time. They have driven peaceable citizens from their 
places of worship by bands of armed ruffians in Texas, 
Missouri, and in our own State, and they claim all this 
as their right. This is not a question of party politics 
or I should feel that I was offering you an insult in bring- 
ing it into the pulpit, but it is one involving every inter- 
est dear to man both for time and eternity. This is my 
apology for pursuing the course of argument I have 
marked out in the present discourse. 

I shall now prove to you that the Constitution of the 
United States makes no provision for a dissolution of the 
Union, or for its own destruction, but for its amendment 
and perpetuation, and that it positively forbids the States 
to do the very things that the rebel States are now en- 
gaged in, and the people of those States bound themselves 
to observe this constitution as the supreme law of the 
land. The provision for an amendment of the constitu- 
tion is as follows. "■ The Congress, whenever two-thirds 
of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose 



13 

amendments to this Constitution, or on the application 
of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, 
shall call a convention for proposing amendments which 
in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes 
as part of this Constitution, when ratified by three-fourths 
of the several States, or by convention in three-fourths 
thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may 
be proposed by Congress." This is clear and explicit. 
It makes provision for amendments which when ratified 
shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this 
Constitution; but it makes no provision for one or more 
States to secede and sot up for themselves and thus des- 
troy both the constitution and our national unity. Again, 
we have the following language, " This Constitution and 
the laws of the United States which shall be made in 
pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall 
be made, under the authority of the United States, shall 
be i\\e supreme law of tJie land; and the judges in every 
State shall he hound therehy, anything in the Constitu- 
tion or laivs of any State to the contrary notivithstand- 
ing." This forever destroys the doctrine of State Sov- 
ereignty, except in subordination to the Constitution and 
laws of the United States, and as being part or parts of 
the American Nation. In further proof of the oneness 
of our nationality, we have this provision in the Consti- 
tution. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to 
all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
States." 

In the following provisions, the States severally in the 
most formal manner divest themselves of every attribute 
of independent sovereignty and nationality, and confer it 
on the government of the United States. "No State 
shall enter into any treaty, alliance or confederation ; 
grant letters of marque and reprisal ; coin money ur 
emit bills of credit." These are the provisions of the 
constitution which the president of the United States is 
sworn to maintain, support and defend, and for the dis- 
charge of this solemn duty he is denounced by these 
traitors as a usurper and a tyrant. While openly defy- 
ing the government by their armed legions, stealing its 
property and firing upon its flag, and entering into 
2 



14 

treaties with each other, in direct violation of the clearly 
expressed provisions of the constitution, they tell us with 
ludicorous gravity, that they are only contending for 
their rights and all they ask is to be let alone. In 
further proof the intended perpetuity of the Union by 
the fathers of the republic, I cite the ordinance by which 
Virginia ceded the Northwestern Territory to the United 
States, April 23, 1784. " The said territory and the 
States which maybe formed therein, ahaW foj^ever remain 
cl part of the confederacy of the United States of America, 
subject to the articles of confederation, and to such alter- 
ations therein as shall be constitutionally made; and to 
all the acts and ordinances of the United States, in Con- 
gress assembled, conformable thereto." 

Here there is not only no provision made for a disso- 
lution of the Union, but it is positively forbidden. This 
was the doctrine of Virginia statesmen in 1812,. when a 
part of the New England States met in the Hartford 
Convention and threatened to nullify the laws of the 
United States on account of the destruction of their com- 
merce in consequence of the war with Great Britain. 
At a meeting of the leading statesmen held in Richmond 
the following sentiments were expressed and endorsed by 
the Richmond Enquirer of Nov. 1, 1814. "Neman, no 
association of men, no State, nor set of States, has a right 
to withdraw itself from the Union of its own accord. 
The same poAver which knit us together can only unknit. 
The same formality which forged the links of the Union 
is necessary to dissolve it. The majority of the States 
which form the Union must consent to the withdrawal of 
any onehvAXM-h of it. Until that consent is obtained, 
any atteniT^t to dissolve the Union, or obstruct the effi- 
ciency of its constitutional law, is treason, treason to 
all intents and purposes. Any other doctrine, such as 
that which has lately been held forth by the federal repub- 
licans, that :iny one State may withdraw itself from the 
Union, is an abominable heresy. We call, therefore, 
upon the government of the T'nion to exert its energies 
when the season siiall demand it, and seize the first traitor 
who shall sj»ring out of the hot-bed of the convention of 
Hartford. This^ illustrious Union, which has been ee- 



15 

mented by the blood of our forefathers, the pride of 
America, and the wonder of the world, must not be 
tamely sacrificed to the heated brains or the aspiring 
hearts of malcontents. The Union must he saved when 
any one shall dare to assail it. Counti'ymen of the East, 
we call upon jo\x to keep a vigilant eye upon those 
Avicked men who would plunge us into civil war and ine- 
vitable disgrace. Wliatever may be the temporary 
calamities which may assail us, let us swear upon the 
altar -of our country to save the Union." How noble 
was the bearing of Virginia at that day when she had 
statesmen to guide her, and when she shone as a star of 
the first magnitude in the political firmament, compared 
with her humiliation and shame, hitched to the tail of a 
rattle snake by political charlatans,led on by that moral 
maniac, the Ahithophel of Accomac. 

I shall close this part of the testimony by an extract 
from the proclamation of President Jackson against nul- 
lification in South Carolina in 1832. "The Constitution 
of the United States, then, forms a government, not a 
league. And whether it be formed by compact between 
the States, or in any other manner, its character is the 
same. It is a government in which all the people are 
represented; which operates directly/ on the people indi- 
vidualb/, not upon the States — they retained all the 
power they did not grant. But each State having ex- 
pressly parted with so many powei'S as to constitute, 
jointly with the other States, a single Nation, cannot 
from that period, possess any right to secede; because 
such secession does not break a league, but destroys the 
unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not 
only a breach which would result from the contravention 
of a compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union. 
To say that any State may, at pleasure, secede from the 
Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation; 
because it M'ould be a solecism to contend that any part 
of a nation might dissolve its connexion with the other 
parts, to their ruin, without committing an ofience." 
Having demonstrated by incontrovertible testimony, that 
the framers of the Constitution, and every American 
statesman who deserves the name, did intend that the 



hate' 



Its,! 



16 

Union of these States in one nation should be perpetual {,,o^!iii 
I shall now present a few extracts from the farewell a' 
dress of President Washington to prove to you the esti '^^fffj) 
mate placed by him upon the union of this nation an 
the calamities he believed would follow its dissolutioi 
These are the counsels and warnings of Washington, tl 
hero, the patriot, the statesman, the Christian, whos 
prayers did more for the accomplishment of America 
Independence and the liberty you now enjoy, than h:l ^|jA 
sword. The utterences of such a man are worth mor 
than the opinions of all the rebel chiefs in allcottondon 
In the language of Justice Story: " Who can preserv 
the rights and liberties of the people, when they shall b 
abandoned by themselves; who shall keep watch in th 
temple when the watchmen sleep at their posts? Wh( 
shall callupon the people to redeem their possessions, an( 
revive the republic; when their own hands have deliberate' 
ly and corruptly surrendered them to the oppressor, anc 
have built the prisons or dug the graves of their own 
friends." "The unity of the government," says Wash- 
ington, "which constitutes you one people, is also now 
dear to you. It is justly so; for it is the main pillar m 
the edifice of your real independence. The support of 1 q^ 
your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of yourj ^ 
safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which ^j 
you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, 
from different causes and from different quarters, much 
pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken 
in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the 
point in your political fortress against wdiich the batteries 
of internal and external enemies will be most constantly 
and actively (though often covertly and insiduously) di- 
rected — it is of infinite moment that you should properly 
estimate the immense value of your national Union to 
your collective and individual happiness — that you should 
cherish a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment to 
it. Accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as 
the paladium of your political safety and prosperity; 
watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; dis- 
countenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion 
that it can, in any event be abandoned; and indignantly 



frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to 
alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to 
enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the va- 
■rious parts. For this you have every inducement of 
sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of 
a common country, that country has a right to concen- 
trate your affections. The nameof J.men'caw, which be- 
longs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt 
the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation 
derived from local discriminations With slight shades 
of difference, you have the same religion, manners, hab- 
its, and political principles. You have in a common 
cause fought and triumphed together. The independence 
and liberty you possess, are the work of joint counsels and 
efforts, of common dangers, sufferings and successes. 

But these considerations, how^ever powerfully they 
address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly out- 
weighed by those which apply more immediately to your 
interests. Here every portion of our country finds the 
most commanding motives for carefully guarding and 
preserving the union of the ivliole. 

The North in an unrestrained intercourse with the 
South, protected by the equal law of a common govern- 
ment, finds in the productions of the latter, great addi- 
tional resources of maritime and commercial enterprize, 
and the precious material of manufacturing industi-y. 
The South in the same intercourse, benefitting by the 
agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow, and its 
commerce exiiand, turning partly into its own channels 
the seamen of the North; it finds its particular navigation 
invigorated; and while it contributes in different ways, to 
nourish and increase the general mass of the national 
navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a mari- 
time strength to which itself is unequally adapted. The 
West must of necessity, owe the secure enjoyment of in- 
dispensable outlets for its own productions, to the weight, 
influence, and maritime strength of the Atlantic side of 
the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of in- 
terests as one nation. 

While then every part of our country thus feels an 
immediate and particular interest in the Union, all the 
2* 



18 

parts combined cannot fail to find, in the united mass of 
means and efforts, greater strength, greater resources, 
proportionably greater security from external danger, a 
less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign na- 
tions; and what is of inestimable value, they must derive 
from union, an exemption from those broils and wars 
between themselves, which so frequently afflict neigh- 
boring countries, not tied together by the same govern- 
ment; which their own rivalship alone would be sufficient 
to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attach- 
ments, and intrigues, would stimulate and imbitter. 
Hence, likew^ise, they will avoid the necessity of those 
overgrown military establishments, which under any form 
of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are 
to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican lib- 
erty. In this sense it is that your JJnion ought to be 
considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the 
love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation 
of the other. These considerations speak a persuasive 
language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and ex- 
hibit the continuance of the Union as a 'primary object of 
patriotic desire. 

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our 
Union, it occurs as a matter of serious concern, that any 
ground should have been furnished for characterizing 
parties by geographical discriminations — as Northern 
and Southern, Atlantic and Western — whence designing 
men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real 
difference of local interest and views. One of the expe- 
dients of party to acquire influence within particular 
districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of 
other disti-icts. You cannot shield yourselves too much 
against the jealousies and heart burnings which spring 
from these misrepresentations. They tend to render 
alien Lo each other those who ought to be bound together 
by fraternal affections. To the efficacy and permanency 
of your Union, a government for the whole is indispen- 
sable. 

No alliance, however strict between the parts, can be 
an adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience 
infractions and interruptions which all alliances, in all 



19 

time have experienced. Sensible of this momentoua 
truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the 
adoption of a constitution of government better calcula- 
ted than your former for an intimate Union, and for the 
efficacious management of your common concerns. This 
Government, the offspring of your own choice, unenflu- 
enced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and 
mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in 
the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, 
and containing within itself a provision for its own amend- 
ment, has a just claim to your confidence and support.^ 
Mespect for its authority, compliance with its laws, ac- 
quiesence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the 
fundamental maxims of true liberty. 

The basis of our political system, is the right of the 
people to make and alter their constitutions of govern- 
ments; but the constitution Avhich at any time exists, till 
changed by an explicit act of the whole people, is sacerdly 
obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power, and the 
right of the people to establish government, presupposes 
the duty of every individual to obey the established govern- 
ment. All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all 
combinations and associations, under whatever plau- 
sable character, with the real design to direct, control, 
counteract or awe the regular deliberations and action 
of the constituted authorities, are destructive to this 
fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. And re- 
member especially, that for the efficient management of 
your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, 
a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the 
perfect security of liberty, is indispensable. Liberty 
itself will find in such a government, with powers proper- 
ly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is 
indeed little else than a name, when the government is 
too feeble to withstand the enterprizes of faction, to con- 
fine each member of the society within the limits prescribed 
by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tran- 
quil enjoyment of the rights of freedom and property." 
The above admonition, counsel and Avarning of the sage 
of Mt. Vernon, needs no comment from me. It may be 
said of him a^ Paul said of Abel, "He being dead yet 



20 

speaketli." This profound statesman and philosopher 
wrote as though God had permitted him to read the 
scroll of the future and see by the spirit of prophecy the 
combinations formed in our own times to destroy the 
government for which he had periled his life, and to warn 
us against them. If he had seen the armed rebellion 
now in existence to blot out our country from the family 
of nations and thus destroy the world's last hope in 
man's capacity for self government, and had been ad- 
dressing a letter of instructions to the present chief 
magistrate, and the people of the Union, it could not 
•have been more appropriate. God help us to heed the 
warning and profit by it. In connexion with the above, 
permit me to quote an extract from the farewell address 
of a patriot and sage of our own times, president Jack- 
son. After referring to the language of Washington, 
just quoted, he says: — 

"The lessons contained in this invaluable legacy of Washington 
to his countrymen should be cherished in the heart of every citizen 
to the latest generation, and perhaps at no period of time could they 
be more usefully remembered than at the present moment. For 
when we loolc upon the scenes that are passing around us, and dwell 
upon the pages of his parting address, his paternal counsels would 
seem to be not merely the oti'spriug of wisdom and foresight, but 
the voice of prophecy, foretelling future events, and warning us of 
the evil to come. Forty years have passed since this imperishable 
document was given to his countrymen. The federal constitution 
was then regarded by him as an experiment — and he so speaks of it 
in his address — but an experiment upon thesuccess of which the best 
hopes of the country depended, and we all know that he was prepared 
to lay down his life, if necessary, to secure it a full and fair trial. 
The trial has been made. It has succeeded beyond the proudest 
hopes of those who framed it. Every quarter of this widely extend- 
ed nation has felt its blessings, and shared the general prosperity 
produced by its adoption. 

"But amid this general prosperity and splendid success, the dan- 
gers of which he warned us are becoming every day more evideat; 
and the signs of evil are sufficiently apparent to awaken the deepest 
anxiety in the bosom of the patriot. We behold systematic efforts 
publicly made to sow the seeds of discord between ditferent parts of 
the United States, and place party divisions directly upon geogra- 
phical distinctions; to excite the South against the North, and the 
North against the South; and the possible dissolution of the Union 



21 

has at length become an oi'diiiary and familiar subject of discussion. 
Has the warning voice of Washington been forgotten, or have de- 
signs already been framed to sever the Union? What have you to 
gain by division and dissension. 

"Neither should you deceive yourselves with the hope that the 
first line of separation would be the permanent one, and that nothing 
but harmony and concord would be found in the new associations 
formed upon the dissolution of the Union. Local interests would 
still be found there, and unrestrained ambition. And if the recol- 
lection of common dangers, in which the people of these United 
States, stood side by side against the common foe — the memory of 
victories won by their united valor — the prosperity and happiness 
they have enjoyed under the present constitution — the proud name 
they bear as citizens of this republic; if all these recollections and 
proofs of common interests are not strong enough to bind us together 
as one people, what tie will hold united the new divisions of empire 
when these bonds have been broken and this Union dissevered. The 
first line of separation would not last for a single generation. New 
fragments would soon be torn off; new leaders would soon spring up, 
and this great and glorious republic would soon be broken into a 
multitude of petty States, without commerce, without credit — jeal- 
ous of one another; armed for mutual aggression: loaded with taxes 
to pay armies and leaders; seeking aid against each other from for- 
eign powers;. insulted and trampled upon by the nations of Europe, 
until harrassed with conflicts, and humbled and debased in sjiirit, 
they would be ready to submit to the absolute dominion of any 
military adventurer, and surrender their liberty for the sake of re- 
pose. It is impossible to look on the consequences that would ine- 
vitably follow the destruction of this government, and not feel indig- 
nant when we hear cold calculations about the value of the Union, 
and have before us a line of conduct so well calculated to weaken 
its ties." 

If these illustrious statesmen and patriots were so 
alarmed at the bare prospects of a dissolution of the Union 
and the untold calamities that would follow, how would 
their indignation burn, were thej now living, to find 
rebels in arms for the purpose of accomplishing this very 
thing. And how would they urge the government to 
put forth all its mighty energies to crush out this unna- 
tural rebellion, and enforce the constitution and the laws 
made in pursuance thereof in every State from Maine to 
Florida. 



22 

I might rest the question here as far as the evidence 
from history is concerned in regard to the justice of our 
cause, but in order to show the utter inexcusableness of 
the rebel cause I shall present the testimony of two of 
their principal leaders in our own State, substantiating 
all that I have quoted from Washington and Jackson in 
regard to the grandeur and glory of the constitution and 
the Union and the maledictons of the world that should 
be poured out upon all who would seek its destruction. In 
a message to Congress, dated August 30th, 1844, John 
Tyler, then acting president of the United States made 
use of the following language: "I regard the preserva- 
tion of the Union as the first great American interest. 
I equally disapprove of all threats of dissolution, whether 
they proceed from the North or the South. The glory 
of my country, its safety and its prosperity, alike depend 
on the Union, and he who would contemjAate its destruc- 
tion, even for a moment, and form plans to accomplish 
it, deserves the deepest anathemas of the human race. 

Henry A. Wise, now a rebel and a traitor, thus spoke 
of the Union and the constitution he is at this time la- 
boring to destroy, on the 5th of July, 1858, to a large 
assemblage gathered together to witness the obsequies of 
James Monroe: "Listen to me, and to what I am going 
to say — I wish that there was no noise, and that there 
was silence in all the earth, and that I had the trumpet 
of an archangel to sound it everywhere. When your 
fathers attempted to form this Union they did not know 
beforehand what sort of a Union it was to be. They set 
to work and did the best they could under the circum- 
stances. What they would accomplish no man could 
tell. There was not a head upon either that had the 
human wisdom to foretell what it was to be; but they 
went to work for a union for the Union s sake. I go for 
Union for Union's sake. They set to work to make the 
best Union they could, and they did make the best Union 
and the best governmeyit that ever was made. Washing- 
ton, Franklin, Jefferson — all combined, in Congress or 
out of Congress, in convention or out of convention, 
never made that constitution; God almighty sent it down 
to our fathers. It was a work, too, of glory and a work 



23 

of inspiration. I believe that, as fully as I believe in my 
bible. No man, from Hamilton, and Jay, and Madison; 
from Edmund Randolph, who had the chief hand in ma- 
king it — and he was a Virginian — the writers of it, the 
authors of it, and you have lived under it from 1789 
down to this year of our Lord 1858 — none of your fath- 
ers and none of your fathers' sons, has ever measured the 
height, or the depth, or the length, or the breadth of the 
wisdom of that constitution." 

Let us bear in mind that these two men who gave ut- 
terence to the above patriotic sentiments, are the very 
same men Avho by bribery and a system of terrorism un- 
parrallelled since the reign of terror in France, brought 
to bear on the convention at Richmond, precipitated 
Virginia into open war against the general government, 
for the purpose of destroying that very Union and Con- 
stitution which Wise says was the w^ork of the Almighty, 
and Tyler says the deepest anathemas of the human race 
should fall on the man who should even for a moment 
harbor the thought of its destruction, and then say 
whether infamy was ever so deep and dark as covers 
them all over, and consigns them to the lowest depths 
of the traitor's perdition. 

I think the above mass of testimony must satisfy 
every unprejudiced mind that our Government is not a 
mere co-partnership liable to be stung to death by a mis- 
erable dissatisfied rattlesnake, but that the people of the 
several states by adopting the present constitution did 
become one nation^ by surrendering to the General Gov- 
ernment every atribute of sovereignty, such as the right 
to maintain an army or navy, to coin money, or make war 
or enter into an alliance with each other, or any foreign 
power. This is clearly expressed and implied in the sixth 
Article of the instrument itself, which reads as follows: 
'' This Constitution, and the laAvs of the United States, 
nhall he the Supreme Law of the Land; and the judges 
in every state Shall he hound thereby ^ anything in the 
Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding. The Senators and Representatives before 
mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legis- 
atures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of 



24 

the United States and the several States, shall be bound 
by oath or affirmation, to S7ippo7't this Constitution." 

The testimony adduced further shows, that this was the 
light in which this subject was received by the framers 
of the Constitution, and it has been so regarded by 
every American Statesman, down to the present time. 

The doctrine of State Sovereignty claiming the right 
of Secession, invented by these political charlatans of 
the south, is one of the most transparent absurdities that 
ever was invented outside of a hm^tic asylum. If one 
State has the right to secede, every other State has pre- 
cisely the same right, and then instead of this giant em- 
pire, the glory and the hope of all lands, whose flag is 
respected on every continent, and island, and ocean, we 
should have thirty-four contemptible petty States, the 
scorn and by-word of the civilized world. And any at- 
tempt at a re-construction of any number of the disjointed 
members into another confederacy, after admitting the 
right of secession, is more insane still, for any dissatis- 
fied member could hoist a rattlesnake or a pelican fla.g, 
and march out at any time and set up for itself. Look 
at those stars and stripes, surmounted by the eagle of 
liberty, representing your glorious national motto, "E 
Pluribus Unum," many in one, and say whether it is 
not of the Lord's Mercy, that these men that have ex- 
changed the bird of heaven for a vile, poisonous reptile, 
are not transformed in his wrath, into rattlesnakes, and 
sent hissing aiBong cane brakes and cotton plants until 
some neo-ro slave would knock them on the head with 
his hoe? 

Let no man delude himself with the idea of a dissolu- 
tion of the Union, and the destruction of the Federal 
Government. Such a calamity will never be tolerated. 
The Union must and will be preserved, and the rebelious 
States brought back to their allegiance, if it cost a mil- 
lion of lives and five hundred millions of money, and 
this would be a cheap purchase, in view of the glorious 
destiny that awaits us in the future. The time will come 
when three hundred millions of freemen will find shelter 
under the tree of liberty planted hj your patriot sires, 
and be protected by the same paternal government and 



25 

constitution under which you now live. If any person, 
North or South, entertains the belief that the whole re- 
sources of the government Avill not be employed to crush 
out the present rebellion and maintain the integrity of 
the Union, the following letter of instructions of the 
Secretary of State to our minister to the court of France, 
will dispel the illusion. Before the recall of Mr. Faulk- 
ner from the French court he had given it as his opinion 
in a conversation with M. Thouvenal the minister for 
foreign affairs, that no force would bo used by this gov- 
ernment to compel the rebel States to return to their 
allegiance. Mr. Faulker was appointed by the late ad- 
ministration, and like most of its appointees, is a traitor. 
To counteract this delusion, Mr. Seward in his letter of 
instructions to Mr, Dayton the new minister, uses the 
following language Avhicli is the same as that sent to all 
the other European Courts, and foreshadows the policy 
of the administration in dealing with the present rebel- 
lion, Mr. Seward says: 

"The insurgents have instituted revolution with open flagrant, 
deadly war, to compel the United States to acquiesce m the dis- 
memberment of the Union. The United States, have accepted this 
civil war as an inevitable rccctsity. Ihe Ccnstituticnal remedies 
for all the complaints of the insurgents are still open to them, and 
will remain so. But on the other hand, the land and naval forces of 
the Union have been put into activity to save the Union from danger. 

" You cannot be too decided or too explicit in making known to 
the French Government that there is not now, nor has there been, 
nor will there be any — the least idea — existing in this government of 
suffering a dissolution of this union totakeplaceinany way whatever. 

There will be here only one nation and one Government, and there 
will be the same Eepublic, and the same constitutional Union, that 
has already survived a dozen national changes, and changes of Gov- 
ernment in almost every other country. These will stand hereafter 
as they are now, objects of wonder and human affection. You havo 
seen on the eve of your departure the elastisity-of the national spirit, 
the vigor of the National Government, and the lavish devotion of 
the national treasury to this great cause. Tell M. Thouvenel, then, 
•with the highest consideration and good feeluig, that the thought of 
a dissolution of this Union, peaceably or by force, has never entered 
into the mind of any candid Statesman here, and it is high time that 
it be diBmiseed by Statesmen in Europe. " 

3 



26 

This official announcement places the determination of 
the administration to put down the insurrection however 
formidable it may have grown. A question arises here, 
has it the men and the money to accomplish this? This, 
also, is a question to be decided by the facts of history. 
The census returns show that in the loyal States, inclu- 
ding Maryland, and Western Virginia there are twenty- 
two inillions four hundred and sixteen thousand six 
Jmndred and eighteen whites, and only a fraction over 
four hundred thousand slaves. And in the seceded States, 
including Eastern Virginia, there is only a fraction over 
five millions of whites to meet the grand armies of the 
National Government at as many points as they may 
choose to assail them, and to guard three and a half mil- 
lions of slaves in their midst. 

In answering an objection brought against this Gov- 
ernment, that it is not strong enough. President Jeifer- 
son in his first inaugural address uses this language. "I 
believe this the strongest government on the earth; I be- 
lieve it the only one where every man, at the call of the 
law, would fly to ths standard of the law, and would 
meet invasions of the public order as his own personal 
concern." How triumphantly has this statement been 
sustained in the late unparallelled uprising of the people 
in all the loyal States, and in Maryland, Western Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky and Missouri on the border. No gov- 
ernment on the face of the earth, ever did raise and equip 
such an army under similar circumstances, as is now in 
the field and at the disposal of the president. During 
almost fifty years of peace at home, our people had al- 
most forgot the art of war, yet in less than two months 
since the rebel batteries opened their fire on Fort 
Sumptcr, an army of two hundred and fifty thous- 
and men Avith all the munitions of war has sprung 
into existence eager for the conflict. And although,, 
through the unpai-allelled corruption of the late admin- 
istration, tiiC national treasury was bankrupt on the 4th 
of March last; having been plundered and robbed by 
perjured ofiicials; and the navy scattered to the four- 
winds, the- government offices, both civil and military, 
filled with spies and traitors, and in a word, the govern*-' 



27 

ment demoralized; yet, in three months everything is 
changed. Tl^e wealth of twenty-two millions of freemen 
is offered to the government to carry on the war, and the 
army and navy have never been in such a state of effi- 
ciency at any former period of our national existence. 
We have the strongest government on the face of the 
earth. The war is of God. This uprising is of Him. 

On the other hand the rebel leaders are without a trea- 
sury, without credit,without recognition as a government, 
without a navy, and their army mostly composed of the 
poor wdiites who have been degraded to a level with the 
slaves. A writer from the South says, "Our armies I 
fear cannot be depended on. Except the officers, they 
are mostly poor whites who have no interest in the war, 
and have been compelled to enlist or be shot. The plan- 
ters and their sons are organized into home guards to 
protect their families against servile insurrection, as v/e 
are living over a slumbering volcano. The slaves are 
locked up at night, and we barricade our doors and lie 
down with loaded muskets and pistols at our heads. We 
long for the government troops to deliver us from this 
dreadful condition." 

• But I promised in my introductory remarks to prove 
the righteousness of our cause, and the right of the gov- 
ernment in its present attitude towards those in arms 
against it, both from history and the bible. Having 
presented the historical evidence, I now appeal to the 
word of God. Neither our wealth nor superior num- 
bers, nor yet the superior valor of our armies could be re- 
lied upon for success unless our cause was one upon which 
we could invoke, and might expect the blessing of the 
ruler of nations. The bible is the most wonderful book 
in existence. It furnishes instructions for men in regard 
to every personal, social and civil, as well as religious 
duty. If there was no other evidence of its divine au- 
thenticity, this would be sufficient. In the epistle of St. 
Paul to the Romans, xiii. 1-7, the duty of the christian 
citizen to the civil power is clearly taught in the follow- 
ing language, as well as the fearful consequences, both 
here and hereafter, of neglecting that duty. Hear the 
Apostle and let him that heareth understand. 



28 

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is nc 
power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God: whosoevei 
therefore re»isteth the power, resisteth the ordinance (jf God: and thej 
that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are 
not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou, then, not be 
afraid of the power? do that which is good and thou shalt huvc praiso 
of the same; for he is the minister to thee for good. But if thou do 
that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: 
for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him 
that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for 
wrath, but also for conscience sake: for, for this cause pay ye tribute 
also; for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this 
very thing. Kendur, therefore, to all their dues; tribute to whom 
tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to 
whom honor." 

But this is not the onlj passage of holy writ teaching 
the doctrine of submission to the civil magistrate and the 
consequences of disobedience. The bible is full of it. 

"Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, 
whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governor's, as unto 
them that an? sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the 
praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well 
doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. " — " Fear 
God, honour the king." I Peter, 11, 13, 17. "Put them in mind 
to bo subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be 
ready to every good work." Titus, iii. 1. "I council thee to keep 
the king's commandment, and that in regard to the oath of God. Be 
not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not in an evil thing" — "whoso 
keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's 
heart discerneth both time and judgment." Ecclesiastes viii. 2, 3,5, 
"Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have 
strength. By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By ma 
princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth." Prov.viii. 
14, 16. "Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God 
forever and ever; for wisdom and might are his; and he changeth 
the times and the seasons: he removeth kings and setteth up kings: 
he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know 
understanding." Daniel 11. 20, 21. "And tliey shall drive thee 
from men, and thy dwelling .shall be with the beasts of the field: they 
fihall make thee eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over 
thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of 
men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." Daniel iv. 32. 

These important passages of the word of God prove to 
us beyond successful controversy the doctrine of an over 
ruling providence, one of the most heart cheering doc- 
trines of revelation. "The Lord reigneth, let the earth 
rejoice. Clouds and darkness are round about him: right- 
eousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne." 
These texts teach that God is the author of the civil 
power, the fountain and source of all law, and the ruler 



29 

of nations: that he is above all, and over all: God blessed 
forevermore. That he is Lord of lords, and King of kings 
and that his dominion is not only universal but absolute. 

In asserting that the above quotations teach the doc- 
trine that God is the author of the civil government I do 
not mean that we are taught any particular form of gov- 
ernment, such as monarchiai, aristocratic, or republican; 
all these questions are left to be settled by the wisdom 
of the parties concerned. Neither does the bible inter- 
fere between different political parties into which men 
may be honestly divided, under the same government, 
such as whig, democrat, or republican; the word of God 
is silent in regard to these distinctions, and so should be 
the christian pulpit. But the great doctrine enunciated 
in the above language of the inspired writers, is, that this 
thing called civil government, without which society could 
not exist, and civilization would perish, and man would 
be reduced to the lowest grade of savageism and barbar- 
ity, is an ordinance of God, and that they that resist this 
power, resist the divine authority, and are in rebellion 
against God. 

God sets up the claim here of universal sovereignty. 
"There is no power but of God: the powers that be are 
ordained of God." The chief magistrate, by whatever 
name he may be called, is the minister of God for good 
to the law abiding citizen, to such, he is not a terror, but 
a protection. "But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; 
for he bearoth not the sword in vain: for he is the minis- 
ter of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon hina that 
docth evil. ' Here is the bible doctrine of the higher law 
plainly asserted and proved. This sweeps away by a 
single stroke the infidel doctrine, that has been spread- 
ing so alarmingly, until it had demoralized our national 
government and threatened to engulph us in ho))elcss 
anarchy or despotism, namely, that God has nothing to 
do with our national politics. The atheists of France in 
their first revolution openly declared in their national 
convention that there was no God, our public men for 
years past have taught the same doctrine. Bight in the 
face of the word of God, they taught that man was the 
only source of civil power, that all power originated with 
3* 



30 

the people. The doctrine that God is the fountain of 
civil power and that both the rulers and the ruled are 
accountable to him, has been sneered at and made a sub- 
ject of ridicule, as being the higher law doctrine. 

This practical atheism, this utterly ignoring of the 
doctrine, that the revealed will of God is the supreme 
law of the land, has been the source of all our national 
troubles. This is the cause of all the insubordination 
in family, and church, and civil government. God has 
been banished from amongst us, and we have acknowl- 
edged only human authority, and that might be set aside 
or suspended, as interest, or caprice, or ambition might 
dictate. This has been the cause of all the mob violence 
which tramples on the civil law and acknowledges none 
higher, banishes or hangs its victims, and which has been 
increasing from year to year until it has culminated in 
the present insurrection which is nothing more than an 
armed mob under an other name. 

I desire just at this point to dissipate a most mischiev- 
ous delusion which seems to have taken possession of the 
minds of a portion of the people, both North and South, 
namely, that the South have been deprived of their rights 
in the Union and that it is on this account they have ta- 
ken up arms. Some of you, perhaps, will be astonished to 
learn from the facts of history that this oft repeated 
story of Southern wrongs, is as baseless as the fabric of 
a vision, and instead of this they have been constantly 
encroaching upon the rights of the North. The people 
of the South have never been deprived of a single consti- 
tutional right by the governmant they are in arms to 
destroy. Now for the proof. 

First, I deny that this mere handful of men, this slave- 
holding oligarchy is the South, or that their institution 
is the only institution in which the Southern people are 
interested. Nineteen twentieths of the Southern people 
have no slaves, and these can go into the territories of 
the United States, and live there without let or hind- 
rence, and as the best jurists, both European and Amer- 
ican, such as Blackstone, Chief Justice Marshall, Judges 
McLain and Curtis have decided that slavery is the 
creature of statute law, and cannot exist unless expressly 



31 

provided for bj law, and as no such law protects it in the 
territories, the master is deprived of no right by exclu- 
ding slavery from free territory. 

But let us examine the question of southern rights a little 
further. This oligarchy has ruled the American nation 
for nearly sixty years. They have had three fourths of the 
presidents, and of the official patronage. They have de- 
manded more room for their peculier institutions, and 
the government purchased successively Louisiana, and 
Florida, and Texas, at a cost first and last, of Five Hun- 
dred Millions, and now these states go out of the Union, 
because they did not get their rights. They demanded 
Missouri, and a line establishing slavery south of it for- 
ever, and this was granted. They demanded a fugitive 
slave law turning the free states into a vast hunting 
ground, and free citizens into a police force to catch run- 
aAvay slaves, and they demanded that the General Gov- 
ernment should pay all expenses, and this was complied 
with. They demanded the repeal of the Missouri com- 
promise line, and they got that also. Emboldened by 
their success, they claimed the right to compel the peo- 
ple of Kansas to accept a slave constitution, gotten up 
by bribery and perjury, knowing at the same time that 
four-fifths of them Avere opposed to it, and they demanded 
that the whole power and patronage of the government 
should be brought into requisition to enslave the freemen 
of Kansas, and a corrupt and venal administration ac- 
ceded to their wishes, but they failed in their ultimate 
designs. Their object was to crush out republican liberty 
on this continent, turn the general government into a 
vast slave oligarchy, and carry slavery first into the free 
territories and ultimately into the free states. For the 
doctrine of Judge Taney, that an African or his des- 
cendants has no rights that a white man is bound to re- 
spect, reduces the whole African race to a level with a 
horse or any other species of property, and it follows 
that a man has a right to take his slave wherever he 
could take his horse. This blasphemous dogma declares 
that a whole race of men, made in the image of God, 
thousands of whom are the children of their own masters, 
because they have the blood of an African mother in their 



S2 

veins, have no rights that a white man is bound to re- 
spect. Finally in order to accomplish their purposes, 
the J claimed as their right, that public morality and con- 
stitutional law, should be superseded by perjury, and 
robbery, and treason, in government officials, from the 
president down, and that it was their right to banish, or 
burn, or hang every man who differed with them and dis- 
troy our national existence. This is not a war of sections. 
It is not a war of the North against tlie South, but one 
in the success of which on the part of the (ieneral Govern- 
ment, the people of the South are more deeply interested, 
than any other section. Hundreds of thousands of the 
people of the south if they dare, would to day implore 
the government to deliver them from the reign of 
terror inaugurated by this oligarchy which is unparrelled 
in modern history. It is a war in defence of our very 
existence as a nation. A war for the preservation of 
every thing worth living for or worth dicing for. A Avar 
in defence of freedom of sj^eech and of the press, our 
civil rights, and above all, fi'eedom to Avorship God. In 
a Avord it is a Avar to settle the question and to settle it 
for all coming time, Avhether we shall be slaves or free- 
men, and whenever it comes to this my mind is made up. 
In the language of I*atrick Henry, " Give me liberty or 
give me death." Having proved by an array of evi- 
dence that would convince any jury in Christendom that 
our government is right in its present attitude towards 
those in arms against it, -and in its determination to crusJi 
out the rebellion and preserve the Union and constitution 
of the United States, I shall noAV proceed to show Avhat 
is our duty toAvards this government. Happih^ for us 
we are not loft to conjecture here but we have the infali- 
ble Avord of God for our cousellor. We should folloAv the 
example of David the pious Avarrior king in like circum- 
stances, namely, make our requests knoAvn unto God. 

1. We should pray to God to defeat the counsel of the 
Ahithophel of our country, and especially of him who 
has involved the eastern portion of our own State in all 
the horrors of civil war, to gratify disappointed ambition. 
Whether Henry A. Wise shall die a natural death or suf- 
fer the doom of a traitor, he will have a fearful reckon- 



83 

ing at the bar of God, for the calamities he haa brought 
upon his State, unless he averts it by timely repentance 
and turning to God. 

We should pray to God to defeat all the counsel of 
the rebel chiefs, and if they are within the reach of mer- 
cy, to bring them to a speedy repentance. And if he sees 
that they have sold themselves to work wickedness, and 
if he has given them over so that they never will re- 
pent, then to take them out of the way, so that our South- 
ern brethern may be delivered from their cruel oppres- 
sion, and return again to their allegiance. We should 
pray to God to preside in the councils of General Scott, 
and his officers. And if our armies shall have to meet 
those arrayed against them we should pray that they 
may always be victorious, that terror may take hold of 
the rebel hosts, and that they may fly before our. armies 
BO that they shall not be compelled to destroy them, but 
that they may be convinced of the wickedness of their 
present course and speedily return to their homes and 
be obedient loyal citizens. I have all confidence in the 
wisdom of our statesmen, and the valor of our citizen 
soldiers, but still our dependence is in the God of battles. 
Both sacred and profane history testify that God doea 
interpose on the battle field in answer to the prayer of 
faith. 

2. We should make use of human agency as David did 
in the case of Hushai the Archite. 

Our government should employ the most faithful and 
trustworthy citizens both at home and abroad to ascertain 
the resources of the rebel leaders, and everything per- 
taining to their schemes and plans for carrying on ^e 
war, and to defeat them by all honorable and lawful 
means. 

3. When all other measures fail, and it is evident that 
these deluded men will be satisfied with nothing but war 
or the destruction of the government, we are to accept 
the stern necessity forced upon us, and appeal to the arbi- 
trament of the sword and the God of battles as David did. 

4. We call your attention to the certainty of our suc- 
cess. There is the most indubitable evidence of the foot- 
prints of God in our history. The American nation is 



34 

the child of divine providence. And the purposes for 
which he raised us up as one people will not be accomp- 
lished until the jubilee trumpet shall usherintheglory and 
peace of the long expected millennium. God concealed 
this mighty continent, this world in miniature, until after 
the reformation from popery; and the bible, the great 
charter of civil as well as religious liberty, was declared 
to be the book of the people as well as the clergy, else 
we had been as degraded to-day, and as incapable of self- 
government as the half savage Mexicans. From our na- 
tion's infancy to the present time, God's superintending 
providence has been over us, and it is just as evident in 
the present conflict in which we are engaged, as in our 
unparralled prosperity. 

The war is of God, and is sent as a chastisement for 
our national sins, sins in which the whole nation parti- 
cipated either actively or passively. Prominent among 
these is our denial of God's authority in our national 
affairs; and profanity, drunkenness, licentiousness, sab- 
bath breaking, pride, proscription for opinion's sake, 
covetousness and oppression of the poor of every section, 
both white and black, and murder. For years past life' 
has been less secure at the South than among the savages 
of Africa, or the western Indians. To be a citizen of 
heathen Rome in the remotest part of the empire was 
certain safety; to be an American citizen afforded no pro- 
tection at the south during many years past, and to-day 
it would be certain destruction. But divine providence 
was neither slumbering nor sleeping all these years, and 
now he is making inquisition for blood. The mere poli- 
tician sees in this mighty marshalling of the hosts of war 
nothing but a struggle between political parties for the 
spoils of office. The statesman sees in it nothing but a 
question of government or anarchy and military despot- 
ism. But the Christian philosopher, the watchman of 
Zion high up on his watchtower, above them all, with 
the scroll of prophecy in his hand, prophecy which in its 
wide sweep stretches from the fall of man to the general 
judgment, sees in this coming conflict the accomplish- 
ment of the purposes of God. I admit that the question 
at issue is one of government or no government; but it 



35 

is infinitely more than this. The great question at issue 
in this controversy, and for which this most righteous 
■war has been undertaken is this. Whether the Chris- 
tian civilization of the bible and the American Constitu- 
tion, as advocated by twenty-two millions of freemen in 
the East, West, and North, and by millions, also, in 
the South, shall prevail on this continent, until the pre- 
diction contained in the song of the angels which fell like 
the music of Heaven on the ears of the Shepherd of Beth- 
lehem, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace 
and good will toward men," shall ever be realized; or 
whether the savagization inaugurated by this Southern 
oligarchy, Avhich substitutes the dirk, and the pistol, and 
the halter for reason and argument in private life; and 
the cartridge box for the ballot box to settle questions of 
state, shall ultimately triumph? 

In a word, whether the sun of civilazation shall go for- 
ward on the dial of time until it ushers in the millennial 
glory, or whether it shall go backward until it, casts ita 
shadow over this entire continent, and lands us in dark- 
ness worse than that of the middle ages? This is the 
real question at issue in this great conflict, and to those 
who believe that God governs the world, the result is not 
doubtful. The war will go on despite of all attempts to 
arrest it, until the purposes of God are accomplished; until 
upon this great theatre, with the world for spectators, 
the great problem of man's capacity for self government 
is solved for all coming time. Until our national flag 
shall float over every citidal, and freedom of speech, 
and of the press, and freedom to vote, and above all, 
freedom to worship God shall be the acknowledged right 
of every American citizen in South Carolina as well as 
in Maine. 

In conclusion let me address a word of encouragement 
to every true patriot and christian. The Ruler of nations 
has committed to us a trust such as he never committed 
to any other people in the history of man. And I cannot 
help believing thatHe has a great work to be accomplished 
through our instrumentality as a Nation, in the political 
regeneration of the world. The eyes of the downtrodden 
millions of every land are turned to us as the day-star 



86 

of their hopes. Snch is the awfully responsible situation 
in which we are placed by the God of our fathers, that 
if our experiment of self-government should prove a fail- 
ure, our downfall would be followed by such a yell of 
triumph from the civil and ecclesiastical despots of the old 
world, who both hate and fear us, as would be second 
only to the rejoicings of the fallen angels over the de- 
fection of our first parents. 

We are on the eve of the mightiest revolutions that 
the world has ever witnessed. Popery, that embodiment 
of cruelty, and villiany, and oppression, that has made 
itself drunk with the blood of the saints, and Mehommed- 
anism and heathenism and every other refuge of lies, 
shall be ground as fine as the dust of the summer thresh- 
ing-floor and given to the winds of heaven. God is at 
the present time, by various instrumentalities, shaking 
terribly the nations of the earth, and preparing the 
world for the wide spread, universal triumph of the 
Prince of Peace. God speed the day. 




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